State Rep. Greg Smith, a Republican from Heppner, has agreed to pay a $12,000 fine for unethical conduct stretching over a year. The Oregon Government Ethics Commission made the agreement public on Friday, Aug. 7. Smith manipulated a public agency to improperly boost his pay by $33,000 and violated ethics laws in how he orchestrated $51,000 in vacation pay.

Colleague Calls for Action

State Rep. Dwayne Yunker, a Grants Pass Republican, urged his colleagues to act on the corruption allegations. “We cannot demand accountability from others while remaining silent when it is our own,” he wrote in his Friday evening post. Yunker said the Republican caucus in the Oregon House should “ask Rep. Smith to do the right thing.”

Smith hasn’t responded, and the state’s Republican leaders remain silent, just as they have for over a year of investigations and headlines about Smith’s self-dealings. Christine Drazan, a state senator and Republican nominee for governor, has been campaigning in part to “root out fraud and corruption” in government, but she didn’t respond to emails and telephone messages seeking comment.

Background

Smith has stayed silent as well. He didn’t respond to emails and telephone messages seeking comment. He has made no public statement about his deal with ethics regulators. Ethics investigators turned their focus to Smith in March 2025 after a Boardman resident complained that the legislator was abusing his office.

The Oregon Government Ethics Commission found that Smith had broken the law. They found he engineered a significant pay increase for himself, manipulating a federal grant process and the board of the Columbia Development Authority. Smith has insisted he did nothing wrong, and in his subsequent deal with regulators, said any law violations were not intentional.

Original reporting: Salem Reporter — read the source article.